GIPSY LOVE (Zigeunerliebe) A romantic operetta in 3 acts. Music by Franz Lehár: Book and lyrics by A.M. Willner and Robert Bodanzky. The 1930 MGM film Rogue Song, allegedly based on Zigeunerliebe, used a different story and only a little of the score. Carltheater, Vienna - 8 January, 1910 Globe Theatre, Broadway - 17 October, 1911 (31 perfs) - (Book & lyrics by Harry B. and Robert B. Smith) Daly's Theatre, London - 1 June, 1912 (Book and lyrics by Basil Hood and Adrian Ross) SYNOPSIS ACT 1 In Siebenbürgen, a town on the river Czerna, near the Romanian border with early nineteenth century Hungary, a storm is breaking as, outside the hunting lodge of the landowner Dragotin, his daughter Zorika appears, dressed in Romanian peasant garb, with wild flowers in her hair, and looking decidedly dishevelled. Then, as the storm dies away, the skies brighten, and the sound of a violin is heard. The player is Józsi, a gipsy fiddler, and he apologises for interrupting Zorika's thoughts, but today is the day of the party to celebrate Zorika's engagement to Jonel Bolescu, Józsi's legitimate half-brother, and Józsi will be providing the music. The gipsy boy is deferential to the daughter of the local landowner, but Zorika is a democratic girl, and she is happy to let a conversation develop. Józsi talks lyrically to her about the love that she will soon be enjoying with her fiancé, but his words speak of feelings that, in fact, Zorika has never experienced when she is with Jonel. Józsi talks to her of a fairy-tale garden of flowers and love and suggests that they walk there hand in hand. Zorika has to pull herself together to remember her duty towards her fiancé. Jonel arrives for the engagement party, decked out in a splendid Boyar costume and accompanied by army officers and other guests, to be welcomed happily by the elderly widower Dragotin. Being an outdoor girl, Zorika has insisted on holding her engagement party out-of-doors and, when she appears with her maids of honour, Jonel offers her a bunch of wild roses. Zorika, her mind in a turmoil, refuses the flowers and insists that Jonel has yet to prove that he is the right man for her. Then, spurred on by the magic tones of Józsi's violin, she throws Jonel's roses in the river. The assembled guests are horrified, but the neighbouring landowner Ilona von Körösháza backs up Zorika's right to decide for herself. A woman has every right to put men in their place and she herself does it frequently Zorika knows that, when she finally gives Jonel the traditional engagement kiss, it will be purely at her father's bidding and not out of any feeling of affection and, as Józsi wishes the future bride and groom well, he offers them a gipsy warning of ill-luck if that first kiss should take place before nightfall. The guests go in to supper, leaving Dragotin's niece Jolán trying to persuade the Mayor's shy young son Kajetán to admit that he really loves her. Fortunately Ilona von Körösháza is on hand to give Jolán some practical demonstrations of the art of wooing. Zorika soon finds herself disgusted with the stuffy company at the party and she quietly slips away from the house and her guests, only to run into Józsi, lingering outside. The gipsy tells Zorika that, now the moon is out, she may safely kiss Jonel but Zorika is fed up with Jonel and everything he represents, and longs to be as free as Józsi. She begs Józsi to take her to the enchanted garden he spoke of and gives him her hand, which he
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